Smokers Die About a Decade Earlier on Average

Jan. 23, 2013 -- Women who smoke are now just as likely to die of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases as men -- and smokers of both sexes die, on average, about a decade earlier than non-smokers.

These were among the findings from two major studies examining death rate trends among smokers published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

"The studies highlight the fact that cigarette smoking remains a leading cause of death in the U.S.,” says Steven A. Schroeder, MD, who directs the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

“We tend to think of smoking as a done deal because most upper class, educated people no longer smoke or know people who [no longer] do,” he says. “But it still exerts a huge toll, and the influence of the tobacco companies is still strong.”

‘You’ve Come a Long Way Baby’

Michael J. Thun, MD, of the American Cancer Society, led a study that tracked smoking deaths over three time periods during the last 50 years. He says the new data confirms that women who smoke have the same risk for death as men.

The analysis included about 2.2 million adults who were age 55 and older.

“When women smoke like men, they die like men,” Thun says.

Women started smoking cigarettes in large numbers in the 1960s, about two decades after men had large smoking rates. Smoking rates were among their highest late in the '60s, when around 1 in 3 adult women smoked, according to the CDC.

Thun says it is no accident that this is when tobacco giant Philip Morris introduced its Virginia Slims brand, the first cigarette marketed solely to women.

The study shows a 23-fold increase in the risk of dying from lung cancer among women smokers between1960 and 2000.

“It takes about 50 years for an epidemic to really get going, and we are just beginning to see the impact of the increase in smoking among women during this time period in terms of deaths from smoking,” he says.